Yeah so when the German government decides to go postal on Google for not censoring Nazi-related searches on Google.de, which may or may not be hosted from US territory, I'm sure you'll be more than fine with Google having to bend to the will of Germany, right? Or how about China...? Ohhhh and what about when Pakistan decides to charge YouTube executives with blasphemy for being "incorrigible" about allowing blasphemous videos on YouTube?

No, US law is being applied to a non-US company because they offered services to US residents.

In a sane setup, the US regulators would go and prosecute US residents who used illegal services, not foreign companies with foreign owners who are not in US jurisdiction. However, prosecuting lots of ordinary Americans is not politically attractive to these sorts of regulatory bodies, so they try and impose US law on foreigners instead. Now maybe these InTrade employees will have to avoid ever flying near the USA again in case their plane is forced to land and they're arrested.

In a sane setup, the US regulators would go and prosecute US residents who used illegal services

A simpler way would simply to make any debts associated with locally illegal services unenforceable. That way everyone's laws can stick to their own borders and it becomes very hard to offer services from one country where they are legal to another where they are not.

It would ideal for them to go after the traders but as the provider of service Intrade is just as, if not more, culpable.

They're culpable for providing a service that's perfectly legal in the country where they provide it? Why should US law apply to an Irish company? Your argument is still that it's OK to go after someone who is not breaking the law, because that is easier than going after the people who are breaking the law. I know that's a very prevalent attitude, particularly among federal law enforcement, but it's bonkers. Or perhaps you think there's some threshold of difficulty beyond which we shouldn't expect LEOs

The key word is right in the summary "pressure". Think of how MS packages windows for euro use, yep the door swings both ways. They didn't have to ban U.S. customers, but rather than dealing with the U.S. , they chose to do so, just like google, MS, and a plethora of other companies have in the past. This is hardly news.

Err, with rare exceptions, most national laws apply to people (citizens, residents, and visitors) within the national borders, but don't apply to people currently residing or visiting a different country. As a quick example, it's illegal for U.S. citizens, residents, and visitors to possess marijuana while in the U.S., but it's not against U.S. law for them to possess marijuana while in the Netherlands (unless Netherlands law makes it illegal).

So in this case, blocking by U.S. IP address effectively stops people in the U.S. from doing something illegal for people in the U.S. to do, while not preventing those in other countries (including U.S. citizens in other countries) from doing that same thing if it's legal where they currently are.

Indeed, like taxes, though as you can deduct foreign taxes paid, you might not owe anything to the U.S. government. Providing support to terrorists or engaging in child trafficking also pop to mind as things illegal for U.S. citizens to do whether they are in the U.S. or not at the time. I'm sure there are numerous other exceptions, but they are dwarfed by the large numbers of federal, state, and local laws that only apply to people currently within the jurisdiction (citizen, resident or visitor) and don'

"Err, with rare exceptions, most national laws apply to people (citizens, residents, and visitors) within the national borders, but don't apply to people currently residing or visiting a different country. As a quick example, it's illegal for U.S. citizens, residents, and visitors to possess marijuana while in the U.S., but it's not against U.S. law for them to possess marijuana while in the Netherlands..."

But the U.S. House of Representatives did pass a bill last year to reverse exactly that.

This is not true in all cases anymore. The US recently passed laws banning 'sex tourism' which is the act of hiring certain classes of prostitutes while traveling abroad, even when engaging in those acts is legal in other states. The purpose of the law is to prevent US citizens from engaging in sexual acts with young children in foreign countries, even when such acts are legal in the country where the act occurred.

Why the fuck would you "call that out", though? That's an absolutely stupid point to make. Of course US law is going to apply to people inside the US. Just like German law would apply to me if I went and visited Germany.

Yes, as is true for most all U.S. laws. Were you to visit the U.S., you would not be able to do things that are currently legal in your home country, unless they are also legal in the United States. Were you to do one of those things (smoke pot in the U.S. as a Dutch citizen, to continue my previous example), you could be arrested, prosecuted, and convicted for doing so.

Again, I'm not making any claims as to whether this should be illegal or not.

All US law applies to all people and corporations, excepting those with special immunity, in the US. This one isn't any different, and its not being applied indirectly. InTrade must have some US assets and they are enacting this policy to prevent them from being seized as the result of a lawsuit.

What? A complaint was filed in a US court, which has the power to do bad things to any part of InTrade that exists in the US. In response, InTrade is almost certainly blocking US IP addresses. That is, IP addresses belonging to computers in the USA. That is, computers under US jurisdiction.

How are they stopping US residents? I assume they will just block US IP addresses. If that is the case, then the US is acting on InTrade (probably indirectly) in order to stop business from happening directly between the US and InTrade. It does not stop US residents currently outside of the US or those using proxies outside the US. So no, it likely isn't a US law being applied to US residents. It is a law being applied to foreign governments, which are applying their laws to domestic companies, which are th

Banks, and any depository institution falls into this category, have quite sophisticated KYC (Know Your Customer) policies in place, which are mandated by both national and international law. You would simply never be able to open an account with InTrade, period. If you think using a VPN is going to fool them, they don't even look at that kind of thing. You're going to provide them with documentation about where the money came from and who you are when you sign up. No doubt there ARE ways to skirt these pro

Nah, you have to have KYC type AML procedures in pretty much every country in order to operate this sort of business. What ACTUALLY happens is a company like InTrade says to itself "if we don't apply proper KYC and do business with US citizens then the US will do nasty things like seize our assets", and that's pretty much the end of it. Even if InTrade has no assets in the US or in US controlled banks there are actually agreements between all western countries about this sort of thing.

The US doesn't ban gambling, they protect the government's monopoly of it.

Well, technically, they ban US citizens from participating in gambling occurring outside the US. It's OK to bet at the horse track and the indian casinos, even OK to do it online IIRC. Just not OK to gamble with a non-US-based entity.

And the US has already been (repeatedly, IIRC?) sanctioned by the WTO for doing so.

Since it's The Washington Post, they buried the lead at the very very end of TFA.

Monday's complaint includes charges that TEN violated that earlier settlement. The company used Intrade to offer illegal options including on the future prices of gold, changes in the unemployment rate and a measure of U.S. economic output, the complaint said. It said TEN failed to provide the pop-up notices mandated in the 2005 order.

Intertrade had already been charged with the exact same offense, had agreed to stop doing so, but didn't.Somehow this is an issue with intrusive, authoritarian governments?

/And I don't think anyone is arguing that commodities futures should not be regulated, because they would be wrong.

Intertrade had already been charged with the exact same offense, had agreed to stop doing so, but didn't.Somehow this is an issue with intrusive, authoritarian governments?

Yes, if the US government is attempting to extend it's legal jurisdiction to control what a sovereign foreign national or foreign business does in their own nation. Does Iran get to extradite and prosecute Hollywood film companies and/or their execs for depicting women not covered by hijabs and/or burqas?

/And I don't think anyone is arguing that commodities futures should not be regulated, because they would be wrong.

If by "regulation" you mean laws and regulations to prevent fraud/cheating/stealing and to enforce legal contracts and negate illegal or unconscionable contracts, then I agree.

If you mean the type of intrusive and byzantine laws and regulations that exist now that attempt to "shape" and "steer" the market according to some politician's or bureaucrat's fantasies, then I AM arguing against regulation, regardless of your opinions either way.

The Feds' problem is that it's effectively a futures/options market in many respects, and such instruments are to be traded on regulated exchanges. Intrade is not so regulated, thus they are being excluded from the US market.

To put a finer point on this, Standardized derivative contracts that trade on an exchange are heavily regulated. Option and future markets tend to be abused by inside traders, fast talking high pressure brokers, etc.

Most derivative contracts (by notional amount), however, trade OTC and are lightly regulated. Think SWAPs, CDOs, etc. However, the traders are large companies which are heavily regulated and are (supposed) to have sophisticated risk and capital controls.

Look up the term "bucket shop" for instance. It is one thing to say be a registered CFTC regulate exchange and regulated FCMs (Futures Commission Merchant), IBs, etc. In this case if I buy a gold contract THERE IS GOLD behind that contract, there is sufficient liquidity to guarantee that the trade will settle, the DTC or some other facility will insure that trades ARE settled, order flow is monitored for front running, etc etc etc. The main point there is however that the liquidity exists and that the inves

Futures (and options) require an underlying of some kind - a physical or financial instrument like a stock or bond. Wagering (er.. predicting) what the NFP will be, or if the Israel will attack Iran have neither of those elements behind them. Once again, nannyism raises its ugly head (and claws)

Ah, law and semantics. IANAL but I would be willing to bet that while InterTrade falls under Irish laws
is regulated under Irish sport books laws
is not overseen by the Irish financial authorities as a “regulated exchange” (stocks, options, futures, etc.).

London’s market is overseen by GB’s financial regulators – so that is o.k.

You can trade in London, because it is based in London. Just like you can buy a car from a german car company, but once it is on US soil, it needs to comply with US standards.

InTrade is acting as a futures market in the US, so it needs to be regulated by the SEC if it wants to continue to do so. I am not intimately familiar w/ the situation, though I have used InTrade in the past, but I don't see what is stopping them from becoming a legit exchange. I think it will help their business a great deal.

A financial contract obligating the buyer to purchase an asset (or the seller to sell an asset), such as a physical commodity or a financial instrument, at a predetermined future date and price. Futures contracts detail the quality and

No, it's not. However, it is quite useless to vote for a minor party candidate, given the First Past the Post system we have, which devolves into a two party system.

Most people feel its far more practical to vote for the major party candidate that somewhat matches their views and have them win, than vote for the 3rd party candidate that closely matches their views, and have the major party candidate that is directly opposite of their views win.

The only people throwing their vote away are those that don't vote. Voting third party is not throwing your vote away any more than voting for the "loser" does. The problem is the binary nature of the two party system we have setup here in the USA. You can fix this by making Political Parties pay heavy fees to register with the government, perhaps a fee per registered member, or something similar. Not prohibiting parties, but making them "expensive" to operate, and thus reducing their influence on the proce

Wait, you're saying the problem is it's too easy to register a political party and it needs to be more expensive?! I don't get that logic.

Regardless, it's a math thing. The simple winner-take-all plurality type voting system pretty much guarantees you'll end up with a two-party system. If we had a different voting system, proportional, runoffs, ranking, etc, then a third party could actually thrive. But of course the hurdles facing this kind of reform guarantee that it will never happen.

Is the long arm of the law reaching too far? Sounds like a gambling company was operating in the US, or at least for US customers. Gambling is illegal (unless the government is in on it, a discussion for another day:) in the US. Therefore they filed a complaint. Sounds like everything is legit.

InTrade is an Irish company, founded by an Irishman, with a HQ in Dublin. They also banned the use of US credit and debit cards in 2010 - so cannot be actively seen to be soliciting business from the US.

Considering these facts, I'm not entirely comfortable with an unrelated country being able to have such an impact on a foreign company, which only operates overseas.

InTrade is an Irish company, founded by an Irishman, with a HQ in Dublin. They also banned the use of US credit and debit cards in 2010 - so cannot be actively seen to be soliciting business from the US.

Considering these facts, I'm not entirely comfortable with an unrelated country being able to have such an impact on a foreign company, which only operates overseas.

Since the Irish are terrorist friendly, I'm surprised we haven't invaded yet.

So you think the US can stop you from purchasing wine while in Italy on vacation?

No, but that's an absolutely fucking retarded comparison. 1). Purchasing wine is not illegal in the US or Italy. 2). The transaction occurs on Italian soil, therefore the participants are subject to Italian law.

This is a question of a foreign government's encroachment on the sovereignty of a business.

A business is NOT sovereign in any sense of the word.

And this is not stopping the business from doing business, except with citizens of a nation which has not allowed it. There is no problem here.

Or, it is a question of a domestic government's encroachment on the domestic business' right to customers.

"So you think the US can stop you from purchasing wine while in Italy on vacation?... No, but that's an absolutely fucking retarded comparison. 1). Purchasing wine is not illegal in the US or Italy. 2). The transaction occurs on Italian soil, therefore the participants are subject to Italian law."

So do you think this bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last year (HR 313: criminalize any drug activity by U.S. citizens overseas, even if legal in the foreign country) is valid or not?

I, for one, am very glad these unlicensed options traders are getting stamped out! There's no room in the economy for these shenanigans! Just think what could happen if people started massively trading options on unregulated exchanges - people would start speculating, maybe betting on, say, housing prices going up or down, and before you know it, we could have a housing assets bubble that would burst, bring down the economy and require massive government bailouts! I'm so glad that options trading is restricted only to regulated, licensed exchanges where such things couldn't ever happen......

The lesson here is this: if you're a small person trying to speculate - that's bad! If you're a giant investment bank trying to speculate - go right ahead, just as long as your dealer^H^H^H exchange is "regulated".

First of all: I say, let them trade. Its not a US exchange. If it or its participants go under, tough luck.

Second: For banks and other regulated institutions, let them trade. On their own accounts, that is. And, oh by the way, for the purposed of minimum capital requirements, unregulated and unregistered securities are worth zero. You can stuff your vault full of them, but when the regulators come to do an audit, they are just so much toilet paper.

I'm perfectly fine with the taxes being paid on only the profit. I'm just wondering why the hell simply having money to invest is rewarded more than actually doing work. Capital gains should be taxed at the same rate as ordinary income, if not higher. There is no reason whatsoever that we should be rewarding people for simply having money.

I'm perfectly fine with the taxes being paid on only the profit. I'm just wondering why the hell simply having money to invest is rewarded more than actually doing work. Capital gains should be taxed at the same rate as ordinary income, if not higher. There is no reason whatsoever that we should be rewarding people for simply having money.

You have things completely backwards. Somebody already did work for his/her money and paid taxes on that income and now you want to enforce the same damn taxes on the income this person makes from his/her investment made with his already taxed money?

Only on the profits. And only for registered securities (following my plan).

I'm willing to trade normal income tax rates on captial gains for an end to double taxation of dividends. The shareholder pays income tax on them anyway. Let corporations pay them before taxes. Like they do with debt. With this change, I'd expect a change away from debt and toward equity financing by many corporations.

There is no reason whatsoever that we should be rewarding people for simply having money.

There is no reward involved, there is just less punishment.

God forbid a person decides to take his/her own retirement into their own hands and prudently invest their money. No-o, we want everyone to be disinterested in savings, so that everybody can be forced into relying on goverment checks. Much easier to control the population that way.

There is no reason whatsoever that we should be rewarding people for simply having money.

Except that "simply having money", as you put it, is proof that they produced something valuable and chose not to immediately spend the resulting income on consumption. In essence, by consuming less than they produced, they made a loan to the rest of society.

In the absence of currency manipulation, that would lead to deflation, and the resulting increase in purchasing power would be their interest on the loan. With the policy of forced inflation in vogue right now, other compensation must be offered to main

There is also the fact, as least in the case of stocks, that the money being taxed as capital gains has already been taxed once as corporate profits.

All money in the economy is taxed numerous times - that's inevitable when you tax transactions. You get your income, pay tax off it, then spend it on some goods and services, at which point it becomes someone else's income and taxed again etc. There's no reason why capital gains should be treated specially here.

You invest 100, and receive back 105, nominal profit of 5.Assuming you are taxed at 15% ( at capital gains rates, income rates would be more, I presume ) on the 105.If I have done the math right, tax is 15.75, 10.75 more than your profit.

If I have done the math right, tax is 15.75, 10.75 more than your profit.

Almost.* For an unregistered security. If its such a great idea, sit down with the SEC or CFTC, come up with a plan to establish a market, record transactions, etc. and we'll credit you the $100.

*Actually, your tax could be as high as $36.75. We don't know if it was long term, short term or what. As an unregulated, unregistered transaction, we don't know how long you held it. Maybe only since yesterday.

Hello, anyone in there??? How would people buying and selling EVENT futures based on housing prices, on an Irish exchange, affect the ACTUAL prices of housing? Housing prices were driven up by low interest rates, lax credit qualifications putting more people into the market, and HOMEBUYERS SPECULATING on the homes themselves. No futures market is going to affect that. The only affect is in the other direction. That's by design.

Do you have any idea what Intrade does, and what their contracts look like? It sounds like you don't.

No of course not, actual prices could never be affected by futures speculation, this has been proven over and over again, just look at commodities, say precious metals like silver, er... Never mind, I meant the energy sector, look at crude oil and gasoline prices, where you can clearly see that... No, wait, wait, I uh... Surely there must be, um, something,,,/sarcasm

Seriously, you honestly think the packaging of real estate mortgages into futures-like securities had no effect on the actual prices of home

http://betsofbitco.in/ [betsofbitco.in] has no restrictions on location. They're probably totally legal here as well, because except for sports gambling, and futures markets specifically, there are no US federal laws prohibiting gambling. Several laws (The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, The Federal Wire Wager Act, 18 U.S.C. 1084) prohibit the transfer of funds by wire for purposes of gambling, but gambling itself is only regulated at the state level (with the two specific exemptions above.)

InTrade predictions are less gambling than the stock market. At least the predictions on InTrade are less affected by random unscrupulous manipulators. Take the predictions of the ice cover on the Arctic, for instance: if you did your homework, you knew there would be very little ice cover on the Arctic this year, and could bet accordingly.

Unless "the law" means "whatever the U.S. government wants." They filed a complaint in their own courts, which have no jurisdiction over Ireland, and an Irish company caved in under what was an empty threat.

I have said it and will say it again. You with your vote (or your non voting) got the people into Congress who limited your ability to bet on future events. Don't complain about the laws Congress makes!

I have said it and will say it again. You with your vote (or your non voting) got the people into Congress who limited your ability to bet on future events. Don't complain about the laws Congress makes!

Voting or not voting has nothing to do with complaining. At this point, we are too far gone for 'elections' to make any difference. Our freedom went out the window when we decided that 50+1 % can make law. That is called the tyranny of the majority. For some it takes away freedom to intrade, for others freedom to smoke pot, for some the ability to buy and sell raw milk, or sleep on a mattress without fire retardants, or continue to purchase incandescent light bulbs.

Oddly enough, in most countries tax evasion is considered a civil matter, not criminal. The US is the only nation rampaging around the world looking for US bank accounts hiding in Switzerland or the Cook or Cayman Islands, threatening to imprison anyone who doesn't spill the beans on every American's private financial details.

The first American convicted in this most recent witch-hunt was the son of a holocaust survivor who's father told him to always keep some cash overseas because you never know when tyr

That's a GOOD thing. It keeps the rich bastards from laundring money and evading the taxes they don't pay enough of anyway. Whether or not there's a law against opening a foreign bank account, normal people never were free to do so. See, that's one thing wrong with mainstream libertarianism, it's freedom for the rich to do whatever the fuck they want. Any "freedom" I can't have I have no trouble with the government keeping from your rich ass.

I fail to see how that does anything but prove RP completely wrong. Are you saying that those people are not able to have their own opinion on current events? I notice you didn't say anything about them actually doing anything.

>Implying that didn't happen everywhere in the entire world.
>Implying that there was no such thing as the Industrial Revolution
>Implying that wealth is generated by everyone sitting in a circle singing Kumbaya

Not really. The CEO of Bet on Sports, was a UK Citizen, living in Costa Rica and was arrested while changing planes in the US just because some of his customers turned out to be US citizens. He spent 33 months in jail, as I understand it.

Protip: if you dis the Chinese government, stay out of China. If you make cartoons of Mohammed, stay out of Iran. If you break a UK law while in the US that involves UK citizens, you're a fool to visit Britain. If you have unprotected sex with a Swede in New Jersey, stay the hell out of Sweden.

Exactly. Which is the reason why InTrade is no longer accepting US customers. This is also true for a huge number of "unregulated" financial services companies based in Europe and elsewhere. More and more are now refusing to accept US customers, even simple ForEx companies. In some cases the US government works with the national and local governments of the areas that the firms operate from and use treaties to force compliance. In other cases where the treaties aren't in effect, the US just makes a lon

The above applies only to China's manufactured goods and major oil producing nations.

Something practically anyone (nation) can do is sell their US treasuries, and use the resulting dollars to buy real goods. Enough people do that, and it will cause catastrophic hyperinflation in the US.